Sports - Current Affairs for May, 2016

Real Madrid on 29 May 2016 won the 2016 European champions title. In the titled clash, Real Madrid defeated their city rivals Atletico Madrid via a penalty shoot-out following a 1-1 draw.

• This was Madrid’s 11th European Champion title.
• Cristiano Ronaldo scored the winning penalty in a 5-3 shootout victory against Atletico Madrid. Atletico earlier lost in their two previous finals appearances.

Asian Games discus throw gold medal winner Seema Punia on 29 May 2016 qualified for the Rio Olympics with a 62.62m effort at the Pat Young's Throwers Classic 2016 at Salinas in the United States.

• Punia crossed the Rio Games qualification standard of 61.00m at the Hartnell College Throwers Complex.
• The 32-year old discus thrower from Haryana defeated 2008 Olympic discus throw champion Stephanie Brown-Trafton of United States of America for the gold.
• This will be Punia’s third Olympic Games appearance. She took part in the games in 2004 and 2012.

The Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports has urged the states and Union Territories to take necessary steps to popularize and promote the sport of Football in their territory in order to make the FIFA U-17 World Cup a huge success,

• This includes football in various programmes of the state government
• Department of Sports has also initiated steps to popularise football through the country
• Numerous rounds of discussion have been held with FIFA, AIFF, KVS, CBSE and Subrotio Mukherjee Sports Education Society and other stake holders.

Steeplechase athlete Sudha Singh on 14 May 2016 set a national record in women’s 3000m steeplechase event to finish eighth at the IAAF World Diamond League held at Shanghai.

• Sudha clocked 9 minutes, 26.55 seconds to finish a eighth in the second leg of the prestigious IAAF Diamond League Meet.
• In the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, she won the gold medal with a time of 9:55.67. In June 2012, she qualified for Olympic Games 2012 after she broke her own 3000m steeplechase national record with a timing of 9:47.70 secs.

Serena Williams ended a 9 month title drought with a decisive win over Madison Keys in the Italian Open Final on May 15th.

• In the men’s singles, Murray prevailed over Djokovic
• This was William’s fourth title in Rome and it came a week before the commencement of the French Open.

Hockey India has recommended national men’s team players VR Raghunath and Dharamvir Singh and women’s capital team Ritu Rani for the Arjuna Award.

• Defender Raghunath and midfielder Dharamvir won the Asian Games gold medal at Incheon and were silver medallists in the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
• Ritu is a midfilder who captained the Indian women’s team to its first Olympic qualification.
• HI also declared Sylvanus Dung Dung has been recommended for the Major Dhyan Chand Lifetime Achievement Award and veteran coach C.R. Kumar recommended for the Dronacharya Award.

Michel Platini on 9 May 2016 resigned as Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) president after Court of Arbitration of Sports (CAS) upheld the ban imposed by FIFA.

• The CAS rejected the appeal saying it was not convinced about the legitimacy of the payment ordered by ex-FIFA president Sepp Blatter.
• However, CAS effectively reduced the ban on him from six years to four and reduced the fine from 80000 Swiss francs to 60000 Swiss francs.

Vinesh Phogat and Sakshi Malik earned 2016 Rio Olympics quota spots in wrestling, as they entered the final of 2nd Olympic Games World Qualifying Tournament in Istanbul, Turkey.

• This is the first time two female Indian wrestlers will compete at the Olympics.
• While Vinesh earned the spot in 48 kg, Sakshi earned quota in the 58 kg.

Simona Halep won the women’s singles title of the Madrid Open on 7th May 2016. The men’s singles title was won by Serbia’s Novak Djokovic.

• She defeated Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia 6-2, 6-4 in the final played at Madrid, Spain.
• This was the third Madrid title for World No. 6 Halep and her first title of 2016. Overall this was her 12th career title.

Indian boxers finished third in the overall standing with three silver and bronze medal in the Pavlodar tournament

• While national champions Ankush Dahiya, Reyal Puri and Ashish Kulhirya won silver medals for the contingent, Manjeet Singh won a bronze
• Performance helped India to finish behind Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Andy Murray and Amelie Mauresmo on 9th May announced that they had mutually agreed to end the two year stint of the Frenchwoman as a coach of the 2 time major champion

• Briton Murray won his first clay court title and reached the final of the Australian Open in 2015 and 2016

Odisha sprinter Dutee Chand has won the gold in the women’s 100m dash with fast timing in the second leg of the Indian Grand Prix athletics series at NIS tracks

• Dutee also crossed the finish line in 11.37 seconds and had earlier a national record of 11.33 secs in the Federation Cup National Athletics Championships in New Delhi last month.
• She had, however, missed the Rio Olympics qualification mark of 11.32secs by one-hundredth of a second.

Cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar has been appointed as the IOA goodwill ambassador for the upcoming Rio Olympics. He is the third goodwill ambassador to be roped in by IOA after Salman Khan and Abhinav Bindra. Sachin Tendulkar has been approached along with celebrated music composer AR Rahman to be the ambassador for the Olympics.

Garima Chaudhary has clinched the gold medal at the 2016 Commonwealth Judo Championship finals at Port Elizabeth in South Africa.

• Participating in the 63 kg category, this 26-year-old from Meerut followed up her quarter-final exit from the previous edition of the competition held at Glasgow in 2014 in perfect fashion, winning the event.
• Garima was the only representative from India to contest for Olympic glory in London 2012 at Judo.
• India will be hosting the 2018 Commonwealth Judo Championships in Jaipur, besides organizing the Asian Cadet and Asian Junior Judo Championships in September in Kerala this year.
• Judo is a sport of Japanese origin.

• New Zealand ace batsman Kane Williamson on 28th April 2016 was confirmed as 29th test cricket captain of New Zealand cricket Team.
• He will succeed Brendon McCullum as captain in all three formats. McCullum retired from test cricket in February 2016.
• Prior to this confirmation, Williamson has already captained New Zealand in 36 limited over International Cricket matches.
• Williamson became the third-youngest man to captain New Zealand in Test cricket, after Stephen Fleming and John Parker.